Brotherhood of Thought
In a world filled with extremists, insular groups of survivors and suspicious townsfolk, the Brotherhood of Thought strives to bring enlightenment. The Brotherhood doesn’t care about the ultimate shape of the world to come, be it a new technological wonder, or a return to simple lives of farming and crafting. All the Brotherhood wishes to ensure is that when that future arrives, all thinking creatures will welcome it together.
The Brotherhood has many similarities to the Minds of the Great Intelligence and many people mix the two up. Both groups seek "enlightenment"; however, what they view as enlightenment can often differ greatly. Where the Minds see knowledge as a collective thing made manifest in a deific figure, the Brotherhood of Thought believes strongly in a diversity of thought and personal freedom. They do not believe in a divine entity bringing knowledge together. Instead, enlightenment is achieved by bringing all thinking beings together no matter their personal opinions.
Given their similarities, it is possible one group is an offshoot of the other. Both groups have many offshoots as it is, so it would certainly seem possible one grew out of the other. However, members of both groups will disagree on which was the originator and which the offshoot. The Minds of the Great Intelligence are much more populous in this region of the world, while Brothers, Sisters, or Siblings of Thought are much less numerous and even somewhat rare. The Brotherhood, however, has a much greater reach, and can be found all over the world.
Structure
Because of their tenets, members tend to be an independent lot. There is little overall leadership in the group and individual members are free to do what they think is best. Most members do not form exclusive communities, instead wandering in groups of 5 or 6, or settling individually to work and live in a community of non-members, sharing their views with friends and allies. Sometimes, they may settle in groups of 30 to 50 as part of larger communities.
Rarely, they may form exclusive communities. These usually take the form of small villages or monasteries. One such place lies south of the City of Cartoons. Called the Temple of Lore, it is a small village built of clay and straw with a monastery on one side along the banks of the White River. All residents of the village are members of the Brotherhood. The Siblings there will accept any recovered pieces of ancient lore and will reconstruct or reassemble them, creating new scrolls, books, or computer tablets with the information. They charge no fee for this; however, they will destroy the old documents to honour the dead, and show that while people retain the lore the dead provided, the future belongs to the new.
History
The Brotherhood was first formed by a man known as the Ashintin, who wrote the Book of Thought. In this tome, the Ashintin tried to answer questions regarding the nature of artificial intelligence, the spiritual place of soultech, and the diversity of sentient life in all the forms it has grown into. The Ashintin never speaks of himself in this book, never says where his ideas come from or why he believes them to be important. What he does do is conclude that thought, the ability for thought, and the quality of thought, must be the only benchmarks by which the value of any creature can be judged. Though no one knows where the Ashintin came from or how he died, copies of the book found their way into many communities and sparked a new religion.
Tenets of Faith
Though different translations of the Book of Thought vary somewhat, they all come to two basic conclusions. First, any mind able to ponder its own consciousness is sentient, and thus a brother in the community of sapient creatures. Second, no thinking creature is more important than any other, and therefore no creature can claim its choices are more valid than any other’s. This is one of the basic tenets of the Brotherhood, and it results in a chaotic mix of members, each doing what she believes the Book encourages. Since all these opinions are considered equally valid, the Brotherhood continues to splinter into factions with very different views.
The one universal among the factions is their acceptance of any creature who truly wishes to join. Many small monasteries exist where younger Brothers are taught and older ones retire. The rest of the Brothers spend their lives spreading the word of universal sentience as they feel best. Many travel in groups that include human, mutant and animal members — and even androids and AIs if any can be found. Since thought is a product of the mind, and the minds of animals, computers and men are different, Brothers believe they must travel in diverse groups in order to experience and explore diverse qualities of thought.
Ethics
Brothers/Sisters/Siblings believe that personal freedom is the fundamental right of all sentient creatures. They have a general vision of a utopia where all creatures can live peacefully with one another, and they believe this can only be built by fostering personal choice. They become most active when they feel this right is being taken away. They often congregate in those places that oppress mutants or synthetics in order to build networks to help loosen the shackles of tyranny.
Most Siblings are pacifists, willing to resort to violence only to save another thinking being. Of course, many believe that hate groups are direct threats to the ideal of universal sentience, and work to destroy these groups by any means necessary. The most common tactic Siblings take to put down hate groups is to form a coalition of surrounding organizations and convince them to band together against their common foe. This allows the Brotherhood to bring groups together, even while working to destroy other thinking creatures. Alternatively, there are rumours that some bands of Siblings train “Censors,” black-clad killers who use stealth, poison and sabotage to cripple and kill enemies of universal brotherhood.
Often times, the path of the Brotherhood is a difficult one to follow. Personal choice taken to the extreme must allow for violence, and the surest path to non-violence is through tyranny. Siblings feel that ideal peace can only be truly attained through proper personal freedom, and so individuals strive for a balance between freedom and peace. The struggle is an internal one, and it is believed that true progress occurs only when an individual reconciles these two extremes.
You think; therefore, you are.
Founding Date
The early years after the Wars.
Demonym
Brother/Sister/Sibling
Controlled Territories
Allegiance
It’s impossible to pin down all the possible allegiances Siblings of Thought may take, as each feels their views and actions are as valid as any other’s. Allegiances to the philosophies of the universal brotherhood of sentient creatures and the generic ideals of “good” are more common than a group allegiance to the alliance. Similarly, the trade goods a member might receive are wildly varied, though peaceful and functional items such as foodstuffs, medicines and harsh weather garb are most common. An allegiance to the Temple of Lore includes access to its store of knowledge (which provides a +2 bonus to Research checks when at the monastery).Indifferent to friendly
For the most part, each group accepts the other, but has no strong feelings, apart from occasional disagreements about which group is an offshoot of the other.
